she will be here so soon!  

it is unbelievable that she's coming at all, and now it is only 18 days away!!!  

i can't describe the excitement!

we have a couple of czech guys living with us now.  they´re pretty funny.  volodinka can ask anyone for a cigarette or a euro and they´ll give him one.  jan´s dog likes to hump people, despite her lack of a penis.

we´ve been drinking for four or five days straight.  i need to recover.  in a very big way.

i feel really happy these last few days!  "happy like animal!"  i have no excuse for it.

these days have consisted of drinking excessively, meeting random canadians and scaring the shit out of british yuppie tourist kids who think you want to beat and rob them (even though you´re just chilling out and drinking with them).

disa and i have started playing two new games. 

the first one is called ..., well, i don´t know.  there´s no name.  but what it is, is you rate random people on a scale of one to ten based on whatever you want and expertly critique them.  this led us to game 2.

the second game is called find the french!  and consists of guessing - based on the strange fashion sense and terrible men´s haircuts - who around you is from france!  it´s quite an entertaining game.  a variation of this game is find the american, which is not as entertaining.  they are easily noticed by having excessive amounts of canadian paraphernalia (notably flags) to disguise themselves.

that´s all for now!

we with disa, dima, and folks from chamuko got drunk on friday night.

we with disa decided to go home.

we with disa may have done something stupid on the way home (not more than 4 blocks).

we with disa totally managed to get arrested and spent 2 hours at the guardia urbana district station, 4 hours at the hospital, and perhaps 8 hours in holding cells with the mossos d'esquadra.

the sandwiches they give you suck ass.  also handcuffs.

the bastards (mossos d'esquadra) managed to lose disa´s passport and bank card.

so.  we with dima and disa tried to go to madrid the day before yesterday.  we woke up at 9:30 am.  got all ready.  finally left the house a little high at 1 pm.  went to estació de frança to take a train.  couldn´t get on one there.  went to sants - estació, where we managed to sneak on and got a train, not to madrid as we´d hoped, but to a place called manresa.  the town is fucking small.  but wait, it gets better.

we got on another train in manresa that was headed to lleida (a fairly decent sized town) but got kicked of by the bastard controller at the next station: a village called rajadell, where there is a sort of secondary highway with no cars to bum a ride from, where there are only 3 trains a day in either direction, and where maybe 20 people live. 

without being able to go any further, we ended up waiting the 4 hours for the last train back to barcelona and in the mean-time, i took a siesta in the "station" while dima and disa walked around for a bit.  then we played cards.  thank god there were no controllers on the train back to barcelona or we would´ve been sleeping in the ass-middle of nowhere.

sorry libi!

um...  we ran out of money.  that is, money we can spend. 

and... we, uh.... we ran out of tobacco.  last night.  uh...

IT´S TERRIBLE!!!

in other news, we found, among other delicious goodies, 3 boxes of After 8´s chocolates, fully wrapped, and not melted, perfectly good brand new condition, in the garbage.

dumpster diving über alles!

so... i think i may be going back to canada.  by my guesstimation, in order to work enough to pay my massive debts and have time to go to ottawa, montreal, vancouver afterwards for the big 2010 show, i must go back sometime around the end of may this year.

i have very mixed feelings about this.

i wrote a shitty poem about it.

as you well know, there have been riots in greece, sparked by the police murder of a 15 year old boy, against capitalism and authority for about two weeks now.  yesterday around the world there were demonstrations and marches in solidarity with the greeks and as a statement of rejection of the capitalist order.

in barcelona there were two.  the first one started at 6pm (spanish time, so about 6:30).  on our way to the demonstration with two germans and a pole we met earlier, we were stopped by the fucking pigs for no reason, had our passports taken and were searched for 40 minutes (we got there for six, so this wasn´t a big problem).  when we were finally released, we went to the starting point to find about 30 people completely surrounded against a wall by a line of riot police.  outside the police cordon were about 40 other people who were probably detained like we were.  this was pretty much the situation for the whole demonstration, until the end when the police arrested one guy temporarily, then released him, then decided to let the demonstration go.  then they were sprayed with water from water bottles, followed shortly by the bottles themselves.  it ended really shortly after.

but only for the moment.

the second one (that we saw, there was another in between) was supposed to start at 8, but of course didn´t start till nine, and started off much better.  about 200 to 300 people took to the streets right in the commercial centre of barcelona and marched for a while.  there was a little graffiti, but nothing serious.  then, as we were nearing plaça catalunya, the biggest plaça in the city, the police circled most of the people, cutting some off (or anyhow, there were much fewer people inside than at the start of the demo).  they kept us there, doing nothing for a while, and then decided to move us a bit onto one of the streets leading into the plaça.  they did this with gratuitous use of their batons.  one i saw laughing maniacally as he wailed away at people.  they did this a few times, keeping us in a very tight ring against a wall.

to be continued... ran out of time.

part 2.

one girl had to be taken by the paramedic staff (also in riot gear) as she could not walk on one leg.  another man, still inside the police ring, was bleeding profusely from his head.  we could not go anywhere and were merely waiting for the next round of police aggression.  they moved back into a line, however, and seemed to be letting us go.  we moved across the street to the island in between the two lanes of traffic, there waiting, unsure of what to do.  three police came, and beat someone so that he needed the paramedics, who obligingly came over.  before they could finish attending to the man, however, the police unleashed another torrent of blows on the demonstraters there, with such ferocity that we scattered, the rest of the riot police charging in at random and beating everyone in their path. 

here is a link to an excellent video of most of the demonstration, including especially this point i just described.
blip.tv/file/1603743

after this, we all ran, dima having been hit on the back and one leg by the pigs, disa, sonja and misha having run down a different street.  i got separated from dima when i was forced with 6 or 7 other people into the driveway of an underground parking garage, where we watched helplessly as the pigs lost interest in us - they were distracted by the prolonged beating of two young girls who had been caught in their rush.  oddly, i have not heard of any arrests, and even in the videos they seemed content to merely beat us until they got bored and then push us away.  the rest of it, for me, was a mad dash, avoiding the police both on foot and in the many circling vans (also packed with pigs and equally dangerous) until i made it to a metro and met up safely with my friends at home.

i´ve learned something, through this, about the nature of police.  they are all of them bastards.  it´s a universal trait of police forces.  in different places they prefer different methods of abuse, those here preferring batons over the gas favoured in canada, but their desire to inflict pain and supress discontent is one and the same the world over.


in a completely unrelated note, here are three quotes that i rather enjoyed.

one does not go to the vatican with one´s ass hanging out.
a proletarian fart is greater music than a bourgeois song.
one should not place dogshit in aphrodite´s bed.

so. guess where i was on tuesday night.

GOGOL BORDELLO!

that´s right my friends!  dima and i went to the show - despite our lack of tickets or money (tickets being 20€ each) just to see what we could do.  and it went better than i could´ve hoped.

we were just sitting outside (around the side of the building where the group vans were) drinking our boxed wine and smoking some hash - getting ready for the show, y´know.  along comes - the one and only - sergei ryabtsev!  so i go up to say hello and do you remember that time you played that show in thunder bay and there were between 20 and 47 people there? and that young boy that asked you about... yeah? you remember?!  well, he did, and apparently evgeni also remembered (he came up on his way to the van, after hearing sergei tell him and gave me a pound and said "respect!" and was off again - that´s evgeni though).  

anyway, sergei got dima and i onto the guest list, so we got into the show for free - fuckin´ FREE!  it felt really weird and bougie to go up to the security while everyone - all students and wanna be gypsys and on-the-edge-of-culture yuppies; us looking like really sketchy punks - else was waiting, and saying, "yeah... i believe we´re on the guest list...  thank you very much!"  but who cares? 

gogol show!  
for free!
via guest list!

cause sergei fuckin remembered me!

woot!


ps - in yo face, shuji!

i bailed!!! and it was fantastic!  i made a four week dash with dima, sonja and denis to barcelona!  i chronicled the journey (made mostly by hitchhiking, with some trainhopping across the south of france).  we went warszawa, berlin, heidelberg (joel! 100€! new hoodie!), basel (switzerland!), zürich (awesome! stayed 3 days!), milano (shit, but 70 swiss franks on the way), turino, cannes (okay, but too rich), perpignan, cerbere (spain! awesome!), barcelona!!!!!!

re: schweiz (switzerland).  from heidelberg, we decided, really on a whim, to go via switzerland instead of through most of france.  when we got to the border, we thought we couldn´t cross (needed visas), so we got dropped off by our rides.  we went to look anyway, and asked at the german side of the border.  the german border guard said we probably need visas, but also that the swiss guards weren´t there at the moment, and we could just walk across.  so we did.  it was really sweet!  on the downside, i didn´t get a stamp saying i left the schengen area of europe (i´m still not sure if switzerland counts or not), which means i still have to go to maybe andorra (i´m told they´re really fascist people) by the 26th.  schweiz was fucking awesome!  really nice and we stayed at a squat in zürich for three days.  i really want to go back sometime.

um.  the whole of italy that we saw, sucked for us, so we bailed by hopping passenger trains (without tickets, of course) until we got to france, which was much better.

in barcelona, we had a couple of troubles.  i´m not gonna mention them here, as some people are still a bit sensetive to the topic.  i´ll say that there was a fight and because of it we got kicked out of the first squat we were staying at.  we are now staying in a tent outside of another (incredibly small) squat, engaged in a rabid search for a house we can squat ourselves.  we think we found one not far from here, we´re going to take a better look this evening and if all´s good, maybe even move in tonight.  sonja´s gone to berlin to meet another friend of hers, and they´ll be back here after four days.  i´m really excited for how things are turning out here.

oh, by the way, you can literally live (and live really well) entirely for free in this city.  you can find absolutely everything your heart desires in the dumpsters here, every day except sunday, and tonnes more that you don´t even want.  and when you need some money for beer (which you can occasionally also find in the dumpsters), or something to smoke, you can sell the used electronic equipment (anything from clocks to computers) to second hand stores for a bit of cash.  and in spain, a little bit of cash goes a long way.

sorry it´s been so long since i updated, i´ll write a bit more about the journey (if i think it´s worth it) another time.

ciao for now, hope to have some nice pictures up soon.

oh yeah, the night before last, we pierced my nose with a sewing needle.  cold sober, too.  and now i have a sweet ring in it!  more later!

adios!

i'm in the belly of the beast,
the bowels of bourgeois debauchery
that brings up my bile, boils my blood
so i'd break every bank and
beat every broker!
... i need a beer.

outside.
i blanch and barf at the
bougie scum
bitching about bullshit
sitting and sipping
expensive wine-swill
sucking themselves off in a
masturbatory ceremony of
self-indulgence.

the ale eases my awful agony as the
alcohol acceuntuates and
expands my imaginations and
not-so-secret wishes of the
security guards smoking silly-grass as the
statuesque structures and
stupid secluded exclusive gardens
burn and collapse on the
self-righteous yuppie swine
within, beneath, and thereabouts.

~ monty cantsin ~

old lady lies in the alley
behind the restaurant
bleeding profusely from
five stab wounds.

little boy holding knife,
no, pen,
black ink mingling with
red blood
turns purple in the
blue moon's light.

"i drew blood" says
little boy, and
with inspired expression
writes it on the
wall.

we demand:
stamps of cayenne pepper
on envelopes of roasted chicken breast,
or thigh, or leg;
to be delivered in baskets
made of bread,
breadbaskets, if you will.

furthermore:
the postman must be clad
in leather, skin tight,
and bring with him,
wine and cheese
to complete the postal
party.

and finally: that
the government, with all its apparati
and police and military
and every fucking bureaucrat
relocate to antarctica
where they can categorize,
capitalize, criminalize, colonize,
and otherwise until
they freeze to death.

- the neoists.

---

great news!!! i think i really will have a flat now! it'll be cheap (600 zlotych / 260 cdn per month), only 15 minutes from the centre by metro, and with 2 people who seem to be friendly. we're going to visit it tomorrow! the past couple of days, i've been staying at a different friend's apartment - bartosz - who is also very nice and a really great cook. seriously, he made (and i mean made: dough, sauce, everything) the best fuckin' pizza i've ever eaten. also, he's gonna talk to his bosses about maybe getting me some extra work (more english teaching).

great success!

one last thing:
istvan kantor

huj w dope policji!
all cops are bastards!
всё менты козлы!

what does it say of my creativity
when all i write are slogans?
sound bytes for this or that cause?
anti-war; anti-cop; anti-state; fuck it all!
ich bin gegen alles! even
   my own thoughts!
have i destroyed my imagination?
boiled it all down to a political swill,
thick enough to be belligerent,
strong enough to get drunk,
   but not original...
where: the spice of a stinging simile?
where: the pointed provocative allegory?
where: the rhyme and rhythm of a verse
relentlessly beating through
   socially imposed apathy?
but who needs poetry, when a molotov
   can burn all
     to ash?

allright. first lesson: piece of cake.

there were a number of factors of awesomeness about my first experience with my new job. firstly, this lesson was only a 15 minute walk from david's house, and thus, really easy to get to (ignoring the fact that walking around after dark in these parts is scary shit). second, the guy really just wants to talk, and for me to correct him where he makes mistakes, and give him new ways of saying things. third, i got paid 30 zloty to just talk to this guy (who's really not a bad chap) for an hour. i mean, it's my own language; how hard can it be to teach it?

this guy mostly wants me to improve his vocabulary and conversational skills as he'll need them for his job. this is where it gets amusing. he works for an insurance company, and more specifically focuses mainly on the stock market and investment rates and such rubbish. beyond the desire to learn a new language (me russian, him english), our views are diametrically opposite.

for the next lesson, he's preparing some sort of presentation (similar to what he does for work) which he'd like me to watch and make slight corrections and suggestions. also, for future lessons, i'm gonna have to look into such things as the recent economic crisis so that i can help expand his vocabulary in this area. like anyone, learning to speak generally is much easier than learning the specific vocabulary required for more in-depth conversation.

but really, it's not so bad. i have to learn a new jargon (that of economicysts), and in the meantime i can laugh as i observe the world economy collapse into decay, which i'll get a pretty good view of as i'll be forced to pay more attention to it.

plus: 30 zloty! пoбeдa!

tallinn eesti (estonia) :: spent friday hitchhiking from narva to rakvere for a nice small punk show featuring friends' band. that night they took me in their van to tallinn and even let me sleep in their apartment. pretty sweet.

riga latvija (latvia) :: hitchhiking all saturday from the fairly early morning and only made it to fuckin' pärnu (only 129km), after which i - with great frustration at the complete shit that is estonian hitchhiking) started to walk. and walk. and walk. all the while still trying to catch a ride, until finally 4 hours and 15 km later (with a 15 kg backpack and shoes falling apart), in the dark i was mercifully picked up by two estonian students who study at the university in riga and were driving (incidentally) from tallinn.

no sleep in riga, on account of the cold, the rain, and the fact that my accomodations ended up being a rather nice 24 hour cafe thing. during my overnight respite, one (very drunk) russian came in and out of nowhere bought a salad for me (and one for him) and mumbled something about the soviet union before leaving (and leaving also half of his salad, which i proceeded to consume). better still, a couple hours later 2 young mongolians who were there for work invited me over to their table, where we conversed in russian while i partook in their delicious chicken, salad, and potato feast, after which they left (and also left half of each of their beers, which i proceeded to consume).

the morning i tried to beg for a bit of change, with little luck (only 2 lats, 2.85 euros or 4.20 dollars) and when it started to rain i decided to bail and head for the next place.

vilnius lietuva (lithuania) :: sunday-monday were easily the best day/night/day of this whole adventure, beginning the afternoon of sunday. after the first 2 rides and 5 hours of hitchhiking that felt not completely unlike pulling teeth, i got picked up by a psychiatrist who was going, not to my initial destination of kaunas (more direct, but less fun) but rather to vilnius. he not only gave me food and bought me coffee on the way, but also dropped me off in the old town part of the city, where he said to meet him that night if i needed a place to sleep (he had spoken to one of his friends who had a flat i could crash in). then, he not only brought me to the flat, but also bought a bottle of cola and another of vodka for me to take (because "it's polite"). these, of course, led to an excellent evening.

the next morning, this same psychiatrist picked me up and got me coffee, which turned into coffee and a delicious lithuanian dish on account of you must by food to get coffee at that place, and then drove me to the best place to hitchhike out of vilnius towards kaunas and the via baltika (main highway through these parts).

warszawa polska (poland) :: the rest of the way to warszawa wasn't so difficult. from the stop at vilnius i got a ride to kaunas and the guy even gave me a 50 litai note (about 14.50 euros or 21.50 dollars!!!), which not only bought me some food, but also BEER and coffee, and 25 zloty when i reached poland! which wasn't difficult, for, when i made it to mariampole, i merely had to ask one trucker who was filling up the gas for a lift. he took me all the way to warszawa, which from there was about 4 hours driving! i coulnd't believe my luck.

i was even luckier when, upon arrival, david was still awake and home so that i was able to sleep at his place, which is currently where i'm staying until we resolve this whole work and apartment biznasss.

i'm back in narva.  i was in tartu for a few days, waiting on updates from my future boss re: work, which h said he needed a couple of days to work things out, and then дима told me that there'd be a cool concert/festival thing ("punk n' roll") in rakvere (a city between narva and tallinn).  so i came back here to go to this show tomorrow.  and then hopefully i'll have heard from david about my prospects in warszawa.

but who knows.

i want to post some photos from narva here (like i said i would a couple weeks ago), but i'm worried about hooking up my camera to the computer.  last time i did (to import the rest of the photos i took) дима's computer made a noise that sounded like "brbrbrrbrbrbrbrbrbrrrrr" and then went off. and we couldn't turn it back on afterward.  clearly it's fixed now, but in case my camera had something to do with the problem, i don't want to do it again.

maybe later.  from a library or something.

so, i started hitchhiking to warszawa today, only went as far as tartu, and it's a good thing.  because it turns out there'll be a 5-6 day delay on the start of my work, so my friend recommended that i stay in estonia for that time.  not a problem, but lucky that i checked before stopping in a place where i must sleep outside.

in other news:

FUCK THE CANADIAN STATE AND THEIR RACIST FASCIST POLICE!  i quote:

Today, Friday, September 19/o8, OPP went onto Six Nations Territory Douglas Creek site with guns. They were in high numbers in vans and quads. Several OPP jumped Sleeper and beat him down. They arrested Sleeper while holding guns on other residents at the site, telling the others that they will shoot if they interfered. Where they got permission to go onto our lands is unknown at this time. Where they took Sleeper is unknown at this time.


менты козлы!

so, i'm chilling out in estonia for a little while.  i came to visit my friends, дима, вика, and моня, and now i have many more friends.  i like it very much here, except for a couple of things:

a) there are many гопники here; but this is not a big problem when you're with friends.  as for what a гопник is, see the earlier entry regarding
"neds".
b) the weather is really fucking depressing.  every day i've been here has been cold and grey with rain about half of the time.  it puts everyone here on edge and makes the гопники especially aggressive.

but other than that, it has been great.  i'll probably hide out here for another week or so, unless дима is up for travelling somewhere else in the meantime.

tomorrow, i'll be going around like ёбаный турист taking a bunch of photos here, so i'll write more about narva (this city) thereafter.

....................................

aside:  i lost my map!  i had this huge, great, fantastic map of europe on which i had been marking my travels, and i fucking dropped it when i was climbing into the first truck that picked me up outside of mariampole on my way here!  i'm kicking myself about it.  i have to buy / "acquire" another one.  блять.